External colloquium - December 11 - David Stark (Columbia University, NY)

How does the historical makeup of a team contribute to its creative success? With my co-authors I address this question using tools of historical network analysis to examine data on some 140,000 individuals in some 39,000 video game production teams from 1979 to 2009. The paper examines, first, the prior exposure of team members to stylistic elements and computes a measure of stylistic or cognitive distance for every team. But teams are not only made up of individuals; they are also composed of groups. One important basis of group formation is whether people worked together in the past. We reconstruct the work histories of team members and record such communities of prior co-participation for every team. Groups (communities) within teams can be isolated, brokered, or folded (coupled without losing their distinctive identities). Recognizing that a cultural product can be innovative (distinctive) without being critical successful and a critical success without being distinctive, the study constructs four dependent variables

1) does the game stand out? (i.e., is it stylistically distinctive?)

2) does it get reviewed at all?

3) is it recognized by critics as outstanding, and

4) is it a gamechanger (i.e., is it distinctive and outstanding?).

For David Stark see  http://sociology.columbia.edu/node/30